Our Racing Hearts
by sdbubbles
Summary: Jac, Jonny, Mo, Michael, Serena, Edward and Eleanor are taking a weekend at Cowdenbeath...will the cars be the only things racing during this eventful trip? And with them all in an unfamiliar place, who will land themselves in some sticky situations?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So. This is a little bit of a mad idea I'm trying. If enough people like it, I'll continue with it. It's basically Jac, Jonny, Mo, Michael, Serena, Eleanor and Edward, and a little road trip to take part in some madness that takes place in Cowdenbeath every weekend for half the year.**

**Sarah x**

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Serena jumped out of the car, furious with Edward. To be honest, she spent most of her time these days furious with Edward. He was just _so_ infuriating. She thumped on his front door impatiently until Eleanor, who was staying the week with him, answered. "Where's your father?" Serena demanded.

"In the garage," Eleanor snapped. "Jesus. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?!"

Serena stalked away to the left towards the garage, finding Edward working on a beat up, dented car with a railing attached to the front and not much to the car itself. She took no notice of the fact he was lying underneath it. "She's not going, Edward," asserted Serena. "She's not going all the way up to Fife with you."

"Why not this time?" she heard Edward's sigh.

"Because I said so."

"Well, that just isn't fair. She's a big girl, Serena. If she wants to see the races then it's up to her." He slid out from under the car and she helped him up. "It's perfectly safe."

"Not for you," Serena muttered. Though she hated to admit it, it still made her anxious to hear that Edward was racing in that stock car of his. She hated the idea of him being involved in some of the crashes she herself had seen him get into. Her mind would have even been more at ease if he raced F2s and not saloons. At least F2s were _meant_ to be non-contact. Saloons just knocked each other all to hell, and when Serena watched Edward, she watched with her heart in her mouth.

The phone range. "Grab that for me, will you?" he requested as he picked up a ratchet, socket and spanner. Serena rolled her eyes. Wasn't he too bloody old for this already?

"Edward Campbell's phone," she answered briskly, making a face at him when he smirked.

"Ms. Campbell?" a Scottish voice replied. Jonny Maconie. She made a mental note to set him straight if he thought anything of her presence here. "Um, can you tell Edward we're all up for it?"

"Up for what?" Serena drawled, very suspicious now; where Jonny and Edward were involved together there was bound to be madness. Edward's head snapped up.

"Uh, Cowdenbeath?" he answered her, and she could just see him cowering in anticipation of her reaction.

"And who would all of you be?"

"Me, Jac, Mo, Michael..." he trailed away. Great. Half the hospital was going to Fife so Edward could show them all what a child he still was. He acted like a teenage boy.

"He's taking you all up to Racewall?" she demanded. "Why? There must only be one meet left this year!"

"Yeah, it's the Superbowl weekend," Edward reminded her, and she quickly remembered that there was always one big weekend where everything was won and everything went slightly mad.

"Dad!" Eleanor called, sauntering into the garage without looking, and therefore unaware that she was walking in on her parents' disagreements yet again. "Which race am I doing?"

Serena froze. "Um, yes, Jonny. I'll tell him." She hung up the phone and rounded on Edward with no hesitation. "Did I just hear that right?" she snarled. "You're letting _our_ daughter race that death trap?!"

Edward stepped back. "She's more than old enough," he defended himself. Eleanor, Serena noticed, was letting her dad take the entire rap for this but she was far from innocent herself if she had asked to race. "There are sixteen-year-olds driving them. Ten-year-olds racing the Minis. It'll be fine," he tried to sell it to her, but she remained unconvinced. "She's eighteen now. It's up to her."

Eleanor took a brave step forward, and Serena knew she was about to stand up to her mother. "Mum," she said. "I _want_ to do this. I've watched Dad do it since I was a little girl. I'm an adult now. Think of this as me growing up."  
Serena felt ganged up on, and she could tell she was fighting a losing battle here. She briefly felt that she was failing as a mother. "Yes, you'll be all grown up when you're in Victoria Hospital with your neck broken!" Serena retorted. She was panicking at the very idea of Eleanor even sitting in that sky blue car, painted all over with sponsors and the red roof that indicated just how experienced Edward was. But Eleanor was not experienced. As far as Serena knew, Eleanor had never raced a car in her life. She could drive, but she had no licence. But Serena knew that to race a stock car, a driving licence wasn't needed, much to her current annoyance. She almost regretted spending the last year teaching Eleanor how to drive.

"Oh, don't worry," Ellie waved her concern away. "Really, how many people actually die?"

Serena glared at Edward for allowing this. He had left her no option. She knew it would be wrong to bully them into stopping this insanity, even if it was in their best interests to just stay at home. "I'm coming with you," Serena asserted firmly.

Though she watched Edward's face brighten slightly at the prospect, he assured her, "There's really no need. We'll be absolutely fine."  
"It's not _you_ I'm concerned about," she snapped. That, of course, was a lie. Even remembering some of his more brutal races made her feel a little sick. But she wasn't going to let him know that. It was a sign of weakness. She subconsciously picked up a long bar and turned it over and over in her hands, trying to dispel the anxiety inside her. "I take it we're all going on the bus?"

"Yep," Edward cheerfully said. "Grab me the airline," he added. Serena's automatic reaction was to start pulling the hose from the reel – a reaction she had not managed to control despite fifteen years away from him and this madness. "Thanks." He attached the air ratchet and started taking off bolts. As she watched him she noticed that he still had her and Eleanor's names printed on the bonnet. She contemplated only for a moment demanding that he removed hers, but found she was quite touched that he still thought of her.

"Why are you taking off the panhard rod?" Serena asked. And then she noticed the bend and amended, "Ah. Never mind."

"Yeah, someone went in the back of me a couple weeks ago."

Tossing a seventeen millimetre socket up and down through the air, Serena was forced to remember just how comfortable those nights in the garage with Edward really had been. Even now she slipped into her habit of picking his tools without realising. She let out a short, soft laugh, gaining a confused look from both her daughter and ex-husband.

Changing the subject before they could ask why she had laughed, she asked, "So. Which race _are_ you doing, Eleanor?"

The girl shrugged. "First heat," Edward supplied. Well, at least it would be over before Serena had time to spend the whole race day panicking. He turned to Eleanor. "I'm doing the rest. Unless your mum wants a go," he added with a wicked smirk. Serena smacked him lightly on the back of his head for even suggesting she drive that retched thing.

"When do we leave?" Serena asked.

Edward looked at his watch. "In two hours. If we leave at about three we'll be there for about ten and I can park the bus."

Serena nodded. "I'll go and pack a bag. Ellie, you stay here and help your father get that _thing_," she eyed the slightly beat up car with distaste, "in the bus. OK?" With that she stalked out, trying decipher how she had arrived there with the intention of verbally ripping him to shreds and left with the intention of taking a road trip with him.

Why did she let him do this to her? Every time she tried to stand her ground, he turned the tables on her.

Two hours later and against her better judgement, she stood with Mo, Jac, Jonny, Edward and Eleanor outside the house. "Michael, late as usual, I see," Serena smirked when he got out of his 4x4, ten minutes later than planned.

"Serena?" he asked. He looked and sounded both extremely confused and slightly frightened. "You're coming?"

"You don't really think I would allow my daughter to race that thing without my supervision, do you?" Serena challenged the American, her eyebrow raised as she glared at him. He smiled playfully, and she didn't have the heart to hold it against him. He tended to kid around a lot; she knew that he didn't mean anything he said to her.

Edward smirked. "Right. Since Mr. Tardy has held us all up-"

"Hey! Not my fault the lights were broken at the river!"

"-we need to get a move on now. Everyone on the bus!" he clapped his hands together. Everyone besides Serena got on the bus. She rounded on Edward, whose face filled with amused dread.

"If you think you're going to win Eleanor over by making me look like a bitch, you are sadly mistaken, Edward," she warned him. She saw his smirk once more and had to refrain from wiping it off his know-it-all face.

He sighed slightly. "I'm not doing anything of the sort. I'm just letting her make her own decisions for once." Serena had to give him that one; even she could not deny that, on occasion, she was guilty of taking Eleanor's freedom from her. She sometimes forgot that she was not a child. She was a young woman. "Come on," he ordered her gently, his hand on the small of her back.

"Get your hands off me," she snapped. The tingle his touch still so often left was a little unnerving.

She internally moaned to herself and took herself and her overnight bag onto the bus, throwing herself down on the sofa seat next to Michael. "Edward, mate," Jonny said. "This is _not_ a bus! I mean, you could live in this thing!" he exclaimed.

"We have done, for about a month," Edward replied with a sweeping gesture towards Serena. She looked away, embarrassed by the memory of the three and a half weeks they spent before Eleanor was born, travelling around Britain while Serena shopped and Edward raced. Well, she had helped him work on his car as well. That was one thing she had managed to hide from everyone she had ever worked with since divorcing Edward – she could repair and maintain a stock car.

"This is going to be a long weekend," moaned Serena. Jac laughed and opened a bag of Milkybar Buttons, and Mo sat with her feet on the table nearer the back. Eleanor looked mortified by her parents' behaviour, and it struck Serena that she had Edward were bickering like children half the time.

"Look," Edward sighed. "The fridge is stocked, the shower is working, the lights are on, I've got the TV and DVD player to work right...can we all just be on our best behaviour?" he pleaded with the group, though he looked right at Serena when he said it.

"What are you looking at me for?!" she shouted at him. Edward smiled and shook his head; he sat in the driver's seat and starting the engine, pulling carefully out of his drive. Serena turned to Michael. "Kill me? Pretty please?"

"Oh, but then we don't get to see the Campbell family at its best!" Jonny protested, much to Mo's amusement.

Michael let out a laugh and threw his arm around Serena's shoulders. She looked at Edward briefly, only to catch the sour look in his eyes as he looked in the mirror to see her next to the American. With grim satisfaction, she leaned slightly into Michael's embrace. She was glad that Edward was now feeling the jealousy she had once felt, even if it was completely unwarranted, and though she was loathe to admit it to herself, she liked seeing that there was still something he must have felt for her.

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review - tell me what you think and if I should continue or not!  
Sarah x**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: HELLO. I SHOULD BE ASLEEP. But I'm not. Sorry this took a wee while to upload. I got distracted by "Blind Winter" and my trip to London and the fact my brother is a total idiot. But here it is anyway. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed the first chapter! :)**

**Sarah x**

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Serena watched as Mo and Eleanor started getting along like a house on fire; she should have guessed that was going to happen, really. She wasn't even sure why she was allowing this to happen. After all, she still did not trust Edward as far as she could kick him. He was childish and irresponsible, and far from a good influence on Eleanor who, to be completely honest, was impressionable at best. Hence why she wanted a shot in Daddy's car.

She felt like throttling him for introducing her to a sport that involved getting in a car and ruthlessly racing around a track in all weathers, mercilessly knocking away anyone who drove in the desired path. There had been many times Serena had watched Edward crash, many times believing that it would have seriously hurt or even kill him. As it went, the worst injury he ever sustained was a few broken ribs.

To stop Eleanor would only cause a row, and Serena seemed to spend half her time avoiding such things, so she allowed it even though her instincts screamed that she shouldn't. Though she knew size and gender had little to do with it, in Serena's mind her lean, skinny daughter looked completely out of place in that car, surrounded by men ten years older than her and far better built.

"She'll be fine," Jac said quietly so Eleanor couldn't hear. "Edward wouldn't let her if he didn't believe that, would he?"

"Yeah, actually, he would," Serena replied unflinchingly. "He is _that_ stupid."

Jac let out a silent laugh at her caustic honesty. "I'm sure he is," she agreed wholeheartedly, glancing around to make sure Edward was concentrating on the road and not to their conversation. "But Eleanor isn't. She'll know when she's pushing her luck and when to hang back."

"And what makes you so sure?" Serena demanded.

"Self-preservation," Jac shrugged.

"I just hope you're right," sighed Serena. She opened a packet of Party Rings and realised she was stress-eating again. It was a rather annoying and unfortunate habit of hers, one she had put on display to Keller Ward last year when she started eating Chantelle's doughnuts and blaming it all on Malick.

Michael had fallen asleep with his head resting on Serena's at about seven, and Jac and Jonny were sleeping too while Edward drove, Mo and Eleanor messed around quietly and Serena sat beating herself up.

Edward eventually broke the silence. "When we get to Cowdenbeath, Jac, Jonny, Mo, Ellie, Michael...you all book into a hotel," he advised. "The bus is too small for all of us to sleep in."

"And why are you holding _me_ hostage in this little prison?!" Serena demanded in a hushed shout so as not to wake up Michael, Jac or Jonny. "That isn't fair. If anything, Michael should stay here and Ellie and I should get a room in a hotel!"

"I'll get a room with Mo," Eleanor piped up. Serena's head snapped around and she glowered at her daughter for making it more difficult to get out of it.

"Yeah, we'll have a good time, won't we?" Mo chipped in; she shrank back slightly when Serena glared at her for her input. As much as Serena liked Mo Effanga, she did know that the woman had a tendency to be a little irresponsible, which meant she and Ellie were two peas in a pod.

"Well, Michael, then."

Edward laughed. "I'm not sharing with him. He'll have half the women in Fife in here tomorrow!" He glanced in the mirror at her. "And anyway, I need a hand to fix the car up. The anti-roll bar still needs to be tightened up and I want you to have a look at the brakes."

"Me?" Serena demanded, sceptical to say the least of his intentions. Surely she was not the only person on this bus who knew how to fix brakes. Surely Michael or Jonny must have had some idea of how a car was to be maintained and repaired for the abuse subjected to it by the moron that was her ex-husband. "Why me?"

"Because you know what you're on about," he retorted quickly. "Better you than Jac or Mo or Ellie. No offence," he added.

"None taken!" Mo called back. "I've not even got a bloody clue what an anti-roll bar is anyway!"

Edward chuckled. "And anyway, Serena. You were always better at brake pipes than me. I always make them too long," he explained. Serena raised her eyebrow at him in the knowledge he could see her if he looked in the mirrors. Was that meant to be his idea of a compliment? "And I'm always too rough with them. How do you get them perfect first time?"

"Years of practice," she grumbled.

"And I need your opinion on the nearside track rod end. I don't know if I'll get away with it or not," he added. Serena rolled her eyes. He had never been able to work out when there was far too much play on the wheels. Who had done that for him in her absence? Milly-Molly-Mandy had not been much of a mechanic. She had been far more likely to be found painting her perfect nails.

"Anything else wrong with the bloody thing?!" she exclaimed impatiently, covering her mouth as Michael stirred next to her. To her relief he did not wake. He did, however, turn and bury his face in her neck with his arms around her like he was using her as a child would use a teddy bear. She heard Mo snort from behind her, and Eleanor was trying to hide her smirk.

She sighed to herself; she didn't have the heart to move Michael.

A few hours later, they were parked with all the other buses from outwith Tayside and Fife, and Eleanor was kissing her mother's cheek before sauntering off with Mo, Jac, Jonny and Michael to find a hotel. To be fair, there would not be a problem. If there was any nonsense from Ellie, a grumpy, hormonal Jac would be enough to reel her in. She looked at Edward. "Just you and me, then," she sneered distastefully. "Come on, then. Better start looking at this stupid, Godforsaken car."

"You've got to be kidding. You won't see a thing," he reminded her that it was after ten at night and therefore impossible to see anything worth seeing. He did have a point, and she wasn't sure she would have remembered what she was looking at anyway. She was starting to waver over her own ability here. "And I'm bushed. Alright for you lot, sitting there while I drove up from England."

"So I could have stayed in a hotel tonight!" she demanded hotly, standing up. "What are you playing at?"

Edward took a step towards her. "Can't we just be civil?" he asked her. She stepped back from him when she felt the old desire tingle through her at his proximity.

"Fine," she huffed. "I'll sleep on the floor," she added firmly when she remembered that the sofas in this thing pulled out to be a double bed. She realised now that she'd been had; she just wasn't sure why he had done it. "I'll get up at six and start working on that wreck of a car of yours."

"Don't be like that," he groaned hopelessly at her while she turned away.

"Like what?!" she retorted, yanking her pyjamas from her bag with unnecessary force. "Just because I don't want to share a bed with the man I kicked out over fifteen years ago?" she challenged him. He looked a little hurt but she knew he would not object to that point when he knew she was speaking sense.

And yet there was some small, insane part of her actually wanted to share his bed, just to be close to him for one night so she could remember what it felt like. To know whether she could feel close to him again would either be a very good or very bad thing, depending on what she discovered.

She turned around and saw the hurt look on his face, but she didn't really care if she had wounded him. All she had done was point out that they were separated for a reason. After all, he had wounded her many times before, and what was good for him to give was surely good for him to take. She wandered away to the bathroom to get changed.

Serena was at her wit's end already. How was she going to survive this weekend? Not to mention the car...she hadn't worked on that thing in over fifteen years, and she wasn't sure she remembered what to do. And she had to tell Edward – as much as she disliked him, she didn't want her incompetency to kill him on the track. And more to the point, Eleanor had to drive that car too. She couldn't have that on her conscience.

She finished brushing her teeth and taking her make up off, pulling on her slippers. She stepped out and dumped her clothes on the table so she could help Edward set the bed up. She was accepting now that she had to sleep in that bed. Regardless of anything else, there wasn't room on the floor and she wasn't walking alone around here when she didn't remember how it was laid out.

"I can't help you with the car, Edward," she said quietly, though she was sure he heard her, because he froze for only a moment. She hated admitting a lapse of confidence, particularly to Edward.

He finished laying the duvet and pillows on the bed and stepped around until he was only inches away from her; she instinctively took a step back when she felt his closeness. She couldn't spend the night like this, could she? "You'll be fine," he reassured her. "You never forget these things."

"I can bet you that I'll not even remember how to change the bloody oil," she grumbled.

He huffed a slight sigh before he showed her a small, sly smile, placing his hands encouragingly on her shoulders. "Name the components of a standard manual gearbox," he ordered her.

She looked straight into his face, suddenly confused by his behaviour. Nonetheless, she began, "Oil guide plate, mainshaft assembly, gear case, reverse shaft bolt, reverse idle gear, breather pipe and bracket, bell housing, access plug, countershaft assembly, selector interlock, selective spacer, final drive assembly, speedometer drive," she listed. There was one more thing but she was struggling. "Oh, for God's sake! What have I left out?!" she demanded, impatient with her own memory.

"OK. Close your eyes," he told her. "Picture the inside of the gearbox." She obeyed, visualising the shafts and gears and teeth.

"Gearshift rod!" she finished as she opened her eyes, pleased that, even after all these years and with a little help from Edward, she still remembered the construction of a gearbox.

"Yeah, you'll be perfectly fine," he grinned. "I trust you with my life," he added as he slapped her arm lightly and went to brush his teeth. She sat on the side of the bed. Why was she feeling so...odd? She almost felt nervous. She had known Edward for years and years – she practically knew him inside out – and yet she was struggling to remain composed with the prospect of a night alone with him. She just knew this was a bad idea. It had to be – Edward had come up with it.

She heard him come back into the main space and felt him wriggling into bed. Serena closed her eyes for a moment and steeled herself for an awkward night of discomfort. She switched off the lamp and got under the duvet only because she was starting to feel the cold of an autumn night in inland Fife. Lying on the very edge she had to balance herself so as not to fall out.

"Goodnight, Serena," he said to her. She felt him moving as he tried to get comfortable; she had almost forgotten how irritating he could be.

Out of nothing more than common courtesy, she replied with her voice hoarse, "Goodnight, Edward."

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**Hope this is alright!  
Please feel free to leave me a review and tell me what you think!  
Sarah x**


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